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Wanted: An Ethnic Champion For President? By Prince Charles Dickson
Jos, Plateau
There are times that ordinarily one wants to take a recess, act as if one does not live in Nigeria or is not part of Africa's most populous black nation and, with all kinds of successes and failures. The recess is always impossible because issues come up, one after the other, we may be spared the agony of mudslides, earthquakes, tsumanis and hurricane but then our political terrain is a landmine with grenades waiting to explode at the slightest miscalculation.
The issue today is who succeeds the average failure of the Obasanjo led administration, who will the cap fit, who will take Nigerians to the much talked about land of promise. In the last couple of weeks it has been a frenzy of activities for the ruling party and opposition, the pretenders to the throne, the contenders with nothing to contend, but the painful reality is that we have seen nothing consistent enough to show that we are heading anywhere near the desired utopia.
Between Governor Kure of Niger State and South-South, it was a war of words a month ago, while the South-South has consistently been shouting marginalization from the post of President, we in the North are spitting fire. Power: the beautiful bride, the South-East has feebly relaunched its quest again, and suddenly the Middle and her belt has lost steam for now. What exactly is wrong with Nigeria and her people...I have had reason to rationally tell people that we do not need another Ngbati man, after the terror called Obasanjo, neither do we need the agitations of the South-South, the Igbo man with the recent carnage in Onithsa is still at crossroads on whether to be part of Nigeria or Biafra. For a North so divided for once against itself, what has been the benefit of past leadership to us?
I must quickly state for fear of being
misunderstood that I do not have a "beef" with any tribe or ethnic
cleavage, infact I am an advocate of a self-governed ethnic nationality
under the structure called
In solving this succession palavar we evolved the rotational presidency, but I have asked can the Presidency really rotate, if it does when will everyone have enjoyed it, when will it have gone equitably round? Let us face the home truth, will the Ijaw man see the Itshekiri as representing him, will an Ogoni man ever get a shot, will the Jukun see any good in a Tiv Presidency? In recent times even soccer that once united us has been reduced to an ethnic thing and meritocracy has suffered for ethnic foolishness. If judged from a historical standpoint the issue of Federal character should have solved all these wahala, but then all it did was to provide wealth, power and recognition for a few elites, while when examined against the backdrop of the leadership, citizenship and governance question it is a product of contradiction.
The present call for one section of the
nation to rule might from an angle be aimed at righting some wrong
however its fundamental objective remains imprecise. From a recent
lecture I got schooled on some very fundamental truths that reinforced
my distaste for this whole clamour for the South-South, North, East and
whatever chase for Presidency...Do people really know that in recounting
the history of the Oshodi Tapa dynasty of Epetedo in
The quest to produce a President for us in 2007 has laid bare again the question of citizenship, settlership, indigeneship and the North-South dichotomy, a problem that often than not threatened to undermine the corporate existence of Nigeria. The bitter truth is that what we have today is the heartbeat of an identity crisis in Nigeria, which is the product of unresolved issues and questions of History...Was Gowon really Angas, of Lantang in Plateau, or was Murtala not Benin in present Edo, was Abacha, Nigerian, or Nigerien, was Badamasi Babangida not certainly Yoruba. Our past remains a myth to us; we fail to study and discover it, in order to make it relevant to our quest for nationhood.
We have refused to outgrow the ethnic tag, regional parapoism, the 'na mu ne' attitude for the sake of constructive engagement; I ask those wiping up sentiments, will for example Peter Douglas Weribipome whatever, be only President for Niger Delta or President of and for Nigeria. It was in Olaniyan and Alan, that the conclusion of the nation's problems was described as three-fold: a lack of knowledge of its history; a lack of understanding of that history and lack of application of the examples and lessons of history.
A trinity of ignorance packaged as knowledge, a nation where falsehood attracts praise and not contempt, so we have an educated elite that have little or no knowledge and understanding of the nation they want to serve. Our differences have been politicized so we suffer maladministration, dictatorship, and all manner bad leadership. We are again on the verge of making the mistake of history...like fools that we should not be, we are clamouring for another ethnic champion, when all we need is a leader that will help anchor a re-orientation,and mobilization around a national project, a people driven, and people focused leadership.
The Presidency of this nation is not the proverbial mama clara' cake that has to be shared by the various sections of the nation or the major religions to the detriment of the minor religions. The Presidency is a difficult position for a man of integrity, irrespective of where he hails from, or who his mother, father or aunty is or was; we need a man, a woman, if we get a boy so be it, as far as, he will return us to the path of glory.
The truth that is not bitter must be
lacking the essence of truth...let us ask ourselves what have the
Yorubas benefited from Obasanjo, what has Adamawa benefited from an
Atiku Vice Presidency in terms of infrastructural development that Lagos
or Kaduna does not have or has not gotten? It is all the same story of
underdevelopment from
What is this agitation all about: to the detriment of getting a leader we are looking for a local champion in the name of "it is our turn". We forget that the masses really want nothing but a leader that will facilitate the availability of food, shelter, and clothing whether the person be an Awori of Badagry, a Kanuri from Borno, or Koma from the Hills in Adamawa, an Urhobo or Busu from Kebbi. The present sectional agitation cannot take us beyond our shoulders. This ethnic championing is going to result in some bizarre horse trading so much so that we would have sold our right to get a good President for a crooked and incapable ethnic mumu.
If we have a free and fair election, whom are we voting for....a Nigerian or an ethnic champion; we have to start now to avoid the pitfall of the past. It is not so much about getting PDP out of power or installing an Aso Oke Congress or Agbada Progressives, a people largely get the kind of leaders they deserve, before the ballots we need to define what we want, we need to let some of these men know that they do not meet the requirements, we need to redefine our destination, we need an acceptable leader, black, blue eyed, green nosed or tribal marked from any part of Nigeria, that is ready to work, ready to listen to the people. We pray that Allah gives us the grace to take the right decision...Amin
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